Recent Acquisition Highlights

August 2007

Background

This report offers a review of recent significant acquisitions by the National Library. It does not describe the large volume of acquisitions of both Australian and overseas materials that are routinely acquired through deposit, purchase or donation. During the 2006 2007 financial year the Library acquired over 270 000 collection items in a wide range of formats.

Australian Printed Materials

A major collecting priority for the National Library is literature on Pacific voyages, and the major figures involved in the European discovery and exploration of Australia and the Pacific. During the period covered by the report a number of important items were acquired by purchase from antiquarian dealers.

  • Chase, Owen. Narrative of the most extraordinary and distressing shipwreck of the whale-ship Essex, of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific Ocean: with an account of the unparalleled sufferings of the captain and crew during a space of ninety-three days at sea, in open boat, in the years 1819 & 1820. New York: W.B. Gilley, 1821. This narrative includes eventual accounts by the survivors and the crew of the Surry. It has interesting Australian connections. Three of the survivors of the Essex were picked up from Henderson Island by the ship Surry which was returning to Sydney from Valparaiso. Thomas Raine, captain of the Surry, made several voyages to Australia and settled in the colony of New South Wales.
  • Bayly, William. The original astronomical observations made in the course of a voyage to the Northern Pacific Ocean, for the discovery of a North East or North West Passage: wherein the north east coast of America and north east coast of Asia were explored in His Majesty’s ships the Resolution and Discovery, in the years MDCCLXXVI, MDCCLXXVII, MDCCLXXVIII, MDCCLXXIX AND MDCCLXXX. London: Printed by William Richardson and sold by P. Elmsly and Mess. Mount and Page, 1872. The rare astronomical results of Cook’s third voyage are recorded in this volume which was separately published by the Commissioners of Longitude. The Library holds copies of both the first and second voyage observations.
  • Duméril, C. Erpétologie générale; ou, Histoire naturelle complete des reptiles. Paris: Librairie Encyclopedique de Roret, 1834 1854. The first comprehensive scientific account of all the amphibians and reptiles and the first natural arrangement of genera for this group. It is of special importance to Australian herpetology as it is the first publication that describes and categorises the herpetological part of the natural history findings of the Baudin Expedition, 1800 1804.
  • Broussonet, M. Ichthyologia sistens piscium et icons. Prostat Londini: Apud Petr. Elmsley, 1782. This work describes the collection of fish acquired as a result of Cook’s three voyages which belonged to the Banks or the British Museum collections. Nearly all of them are recorded as having been collected in the Pacific by Banks, Solander, J.R. Forster and Cook.

A number of books documenting early Australian life and not previously held in the Library’s collections have been received. These include nineteenth and twentieth century imprints.

  • Chabrillan, Céleste Vénard de comtesse. Les voleurs d'or. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1857. This novel, written by the French-Consul’s wife, is set in Melbourne and the Victorian goldfields. An English translation was published as The Gold Robbers in 1970.
  • Praed, Mrs Campbell. The lost Earl of Ellan: a story of an Australian life. London: Chatto & Windus, 1906. The Library has been making special efforts to fill gaps in the collection of works written by Rosa Praed.

The Library acquires artist’s books on a selective basis as examples of the art and craft of book production. An interesting range of works have been purchased in the period under review.

  • Duyfken; the Aboriginal print portfolio. Melbourne: Australian Print Workshop, 2006. 10 original prints. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands commissioned this work to commemorate 400 years of Dutch contact with Australia. Limited edition of 50.
  • Kingston, Peter. Sydney deckie. Sydney: Possom Press, 2004. 17 linoprints created and printed by the artist on Japanese Iwaki mulberry paper featuring images of Luna Park, ferry deckies, the Opera House, and the Harbour Bridge. Limited edition of six.
  • Schlitz, Michael. Journal. 1996. Journal of writings and images compiled in response to the artist's imagined voyages of Bass and Flinders. Only one copy was produced.

Australian documentary heritage is also represented by more ephemeral or insubstantial material, and the National Library collects a varied selection documenting aspects of Australian life. The following menus and leaflets were acquired in this reporting period.

  • [Bert Hinkler menu]. Luncheon for Bert Hinkler, Australia’s ambassador of the air, at the Menzies, Monday 19th March 1928.
  • [Bert Hinkler menu]. A dinner to Lieutenant Bert Hinkler, D.S.C. A.F.C. given by The Australian Aero Club, Victorian Section, after his memorable solo flight England – Australia, sixteen days 134 hours flying, Melbourne, 20th March 1928.
  • [Advertisement] Balloon ascension and daring, thrilling parachute jump by Miss Val. Van Tassell, the only lady aeronaut in the world, Kensington Oval, Adelaide, Saturday May 10th [1890]. A member of an American acrobatic company, Miss Van Tassell was the first woman in Australia to descend by parachute from a hot air balloon on 8 February 1890.

The National Library collects posters as part of the Australian documentary heritage. Several posters tempting travel to and within Australia were acquired including: The holiday spirit, Mt. Buffalo National Park (ca. 1930); The new overland, Melbourne to Adelaide, 1¼ hours quicker (ca. 1940s); B.O. A.C. Britain-Australia by the kangaroo service, in association with Q.E.A; They’ll be glad to see you in the ‘Old country’, take a ‘boomerang’ ticket, it’s cheaper – with P&O (ca. 1950s); and Spa health resorts, Daylesford, Hepburn Springs, go by train (1952).

Australian Online Publications

To provide ongoing access to documentary heritage material in digital form the Library collects significant Australian websites and other online documents and makes them available for use through the PANDORA archive. The following examples of online resources recently archived show the diversity of the material being collected.

  • 50 years: celebrating 50 years of the ABC - website featuring multimedia highlights of the last 50 years.
  • Afrikaans in Sydney - podcast in Afrikaans, about the South African experience in Australia.
  • Shimmering light: images of Vietnamese elders - an online photographic exhibition of the Vietnamese community in Sydney by renowned photographer Tiet Ho.
  • Australian survey of retirement attitudes and motivations (Oz retirement survey) - website of a project funded by the Australian Research Council.
  • Peter Martin blog - a blog by well-known Canberra economics journalist Peter Martin.
  • Sydney Institute podcast - a regular podcast from the privately funded think tank, the Sydney Institute, featuring high profile Australians.
  • Doctors e-cohort - website for the longitudinal study examining patterns of recruitment and retention in the Australian medical practitioner workforce and medical student populations.
  • Australian plants online - an online magazine that has been published since 1998 and covers Australian plant propagation and identification.
  • Journal of artistic and creative education - a new peer-reviewed journal from the University of Melbourne.
  • Journal of organic systems - an Australian and New Zealand collaborative journal focusing on organic systems within the global bio-region.

Manuscripts

Publicity surrounding acquisition of the papers of Patrick White resulted in many additional acquisitions of White related material. Among these were the papers of theatre director John Sumner (including a rare typescript for A Cheery Soul, complete with White’s own sketch for a stage plan), an important set of letters to film director Paul Cox, correspondence between Manoly Lascaris and writer Sally Bird, early 1960s correspondence between Patrick White and poet and publisher Max Harris, drafts and a tape recording of White’s speech ‘Role of the Australian citizen in a nuclear war’.

Many other significant literary and drama collections were acquired during this period. A fine addition from Elizabeth Harrower includes a long run of correspondence with Shirley Hazzard, particularly significant as Hazzard has not transferred her own papers to any archive and primary sources are scarce. There were also additions to the papers of writers Robert Adamson, Nicolette Stasko and Mem Fox. Several large literary organisational archives were acquired, including records of the now-defunct Australian National Playwrights Centre and Playworks and the author correspondence of Australia’s longest established literary agency, Curtis Brown Pty Ltd.

The Library’s holdings of material relating to artists was strengthened with the donation of a very significant artist’s book by James Gleeson including hundreds of drawings, collages and watercolours and the papers of Hardy Wilson, received after many years of intermittent contact with the artist’s family.

Manuscripts received its first ‘digital only’ archive when it acquired records stored on 200 5.25 inch disks from Nobel Laureate Professor Robin Warren. This collection is being used to test requirements for acquiring, preserving and managing born–digital personal archives. The more traditional format records of the GeneEthics network contribute to a growing collection strength around genetic engineering issues.

The papers of several eminent Australians were received during the period, among hem the papers of Donald McDonald, former Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Honourable Fred Chaney, former Minister in the Fraser Government, who has recently completed a term as President of the Australian Native Title Tribunal. Additional correspondence with Edward Koiki Mabo was received from Professor Noel Loos, former co-Chairman of the Townsville Native Title Tribunal.

The Library continues to strengthen its colonial period collections, acquiring records from Springfield station, a set of early Tasmanian letters (1830 1844), 1841 Durmont d’Urville correspondence, letters from the New Australia colony in Paraguay, and the diary of Alberto Dias Soares, an evangelical Anglican minister and church architect who designed a number of churches in the Canberra and Monaro districts in the mid 1850s.

Representation of church history and religious life was enhanced by the acquisition of the papers of Sir Philip Strong, Bishop of New Guinea during World War II and later Archbishop of Brisbane and Primate of Australia, and the records of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture.

Maps

Cartes et Tables de la Geographie Physique ou Naturelle, a very rare 1770 atlas, represents the ultimate in French speculation about the nature of the Australian east coast prior to Cook’s first voyage of discovery. By the Royal cartographer, Philippe Buache, it comprises 20 plates and was published by the French Academy of Sciences. Buache’s theoretical work on the physical aspects of geography is noted for fixing connections between continents and known mountain chains to hypothetical submarine faults and ranges, at a time when the geological sciences were in their infancy. The charts of Australia, and the southern Indian and Pacific oceans are all outstanding examples of Buache’s theoretical drawing. The atlas is in very good condition and bound in the original gold-tooled leather.

Another exceptional acquisition was Thesaurus geographicus, a gazetteer by Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp. Ortelius was the foremost sixteenth century geographer and the Library possesses three of his world atlases. This beautifully bound 1596 edition of the Ortelius ‘thesaurus’ contains 30 000 geographic terms of ancient and medieval geography and a critical treatise on geography. The thesaurus was a companion to Ortelius’ atlas Theatrum orbis terrarum, of which the Library has 1601 and 1609 editions. It became a standard work in historical geography and topographical lexicography. To this, the second edition of Ortelius’ thesaurus, is attributed the first known mention of the concept of continental drift. Writing prior to the discovery of Australia, Ortelius suggested that the Americas were torn away from Europe and Africa by “earthquakes and floods”, and that the vestiges of the rupture revealed themselves, “if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three continents.”

An important printed record of Tasman’s voyages was acquired. During his two voyages of 1642-43 and 1644 Tasman provided what was to remain more or less unchanged as the world’s image of the Australian continent until Cook’s voyage, 130 years later. The first expedition charted Tasmania and New Zealand, while the results of his second voyage were the first accurate charting of the northern Australian coastline. Evidence of Tasman’s achievement in the form of maps began to appear in 1648, the same year construction began on the Burgerzaal, still one of Amsterdam’s finest public buildings. An integral part of the Citizen’s Hall, a large world map in marble and copper was laid on the floor. Comprising two world hemispheres each 20 feet in diameter, the floor was depicted in an architectural volume by Jacob Van Campen, published in 1661. Time and wear and tear to the marble led to several attempts at renovation, however by 1765 the two hemispheres had disappeared from the floor. As the only printed record, the map De Grondt en Vloer vande Groote Burgerzaal [Floor of the Grand Citizens’ Hall], has a unique place in laying before the reader a record of the Tasman voyages. One other copy of the volume exists in Australia, at the State Library of New South Wales.

Music and Dance

Arising from our participation in the Australian Research Council funded project on the Ballets Russes in Australia, the Library became aware of an impressive collection of 1182 vintage photographs of 1939 and 1940 Ballets Russes performances in Melbourne. The collection has since been acquired from the daughter of the photographer, Hugh P. Hall. The photographs include productions of Spectre de la Rose, Le coq d'or, L'Après-midi d'un faune and many others. They show the choreography, costumes and settings and, being sequential in nature, is a valuable resource for performers restaging the dances.

The trustees of the estate of Kristian Fredrikson (1940-2005), one of Australia’s most respected and prolific performing arts designers, have donated his archive to the Library. In a career spanning over 40 years Fredrikson’s work encompassed ballet, opera, contemporary dance, theatre, exhibitions, film and television. Notable among his collaborators were Graeme Murphy, George Ogilvie, the Melbourne Theatre Company, Opera Australia and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. The collection is strongly representative of the scope of Fredrikson’s work and includes exquisitely detailed drawings and rough sketches which capture perfectly both the essence of each production and the creative output of this talented designer.

A highlight was the purchase of Dame Nellie Melba memorabilia from the Melba Conservatorium of Music. The collection contains an autographed musical manuscript of a cadenza written for Melba by Joachim, the most famous European violinist of the day, 58 of Melba’s personal performance editions and an exquisite silk fan signed by 25 famous artists and colleagues. The new collection adds to the existing Melba correspondence, photos, performance memorabilia and some regalia. Her annotated personal scores document the roles she played and provide intriguing clues to her way of learning and interpreting roles.

Other acquisitions include a collection of letters by Percy Grainger purchased at Sotheby’s London; a rare early collection of published and engraved sheet music dating from the 1840s and a new instalment for the Pinne Collection of 100 years of sheet music from musicals.

In addition, the Library acquired a collection of 10 scrapbooks containing newspaper cuttings, programmes and memorabilia documenting Roger Smalley’s career as a composer and pianist in England and Australia assembled by his proud father.

Oral History and Folklore

Recent interviews have included prominent arts identities. Vincent Plush interviewed composer Robert Hughes and Doreen Bridges, a noted music educator; Ann Turner interviewed Nora Brash, PNG playwright, journalist, and writer. Mark O’Connor interviewed poets Suzanne and Brian Ridley; Sara Dowse interviewed author Carmel Bird; Dr Daniel Connell interviewed arts administrator and former ABC Board Chairman Donald McDonald and John Bannister interviewed fashion designer Liz Davenport as part of the continuing collaboration with the State Library of Western Australia.

Curator of Dance, Lee Christofis conducted interviews with a number of people involved in dance, and particularly the Ballets Russes tours, including Annette Gillen, Zora Semberova, Perdita Eldridge, Barbara Hardy, Mary Heath, Judith Farrell, Shirley Baker, Valerie Lisner, Felicitie Campbell and Irina Baronova. Bill Stephens interviewed publicist Coralie Wood, dancer and choreographer Ross Coleman and regional newspaper publisher and band leader Jim Woods. James Waites interviewed the actress Maggie Blinco.

Scientists who were interviewed included Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, 2006 winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, interviewed by Dr Ann Moyal; astronomer Dr Lister Staveley-Smith interviewed by Dr Ragbir Bhathal, and Professor Jenny Graves, recipient of the 2007 Thinker of the Year award interviewed by Peter Pockley. The engineer and businessman Sir Arvi Parbo was interviewed by Rob Linn.

Professor Peter Read and Jackie Huggins interviewed Indigenous community leaders Avenlina Tarrago, John Huggins, Anita Heiss, Rhianna Patrick and Zirala Currie for the Seven Years On project. Sue Davenport interviewed Joan Dearman and John Sherwood for the Martu Aboriginal History Project. Dr Aaron Corn and Joe Gumbula recorded interviews in Arnhem Land with Brian Norman Brown, Farrah Gumbula, Frank Garawirritja, George Gaykamanu, John Moran, Ian Gumbula and Keith Dhamarrandji.

Australian Research Council funded projects contributed many interviews. For the history of the Academy of the Social Sciences with Victoria University and Melbourne University interviews were recorded with Professors Fay Gale, Joseph Isaac, Peter Sheehan, Bettina Cass, Raewyn Connell, Marcia Neave, Sue Richardson, Peter Singer, Don Aitkin, Dr Michael Keating, Dr Jonathan Pincus and Ian Castles. Sir Anthony Mason and Sir Daryl Dawson were interviewed for the Australian National University history of the High Court. Associate Professor Jenny Hocking of Monash University interviewed Gough Whitlam, Freda Whitlam, Moss Cass, Bill Hayden and Malcolm Fraser for her political biography of Gough Whitlam.

Folklorist Rob Willis made a number of recordings with traditional performers during visits to Tasmania, Western Australia and through regional New South Wales. Sean Doherty, Irish fiddler and Tom Kearns, Irish singer were recorded in the Library’s music studio. Kevin Bradley recorded interviews with individuals in the Australian Irish music community in Western Australia and New South Wales, including an interview with musician, educator and entrepreneur, Kevin Doyle.

Pictures

In December, Pictures identified an oil painting of ‘the old tree’ by George Peacock in a Leonard Joel catalogue as the South Australian Proclamation Tree and successfully bid for it at the auction. Other bidders must have also recognised its importance since the bidding went to four times the catalogue estimate. The painting is rare for its depiction of the famous ‘Old Gum Tree’ in its healthy state, in colour, and surrounded by cottages now replaced by urban development.

Two other colonial works were purchased in the period. Negotiations with a Victorian family led to the purchase of the oil On the Murray River at Echucha, 1885 by P.J. Lysaght. The painting, which shows a paddle steamer, people and buildings on the river bank, combines topographical and social history elements to provide an interesting record of life on the Murray River. The Library was also successful in purchasing an S.T. Gill watercolour of Hill River Station, Clare, South Australia, ca. 1846 at a Deutscher & Hackett sale in Melbourne. The watercolour shows good detail of the homestead, which was one of the earliest European settlements in the Clare Valley.

Another auction acquisition was a presentation album of photographs of the Murray River Irrigation System in 1920, compiled by the Irrigation Department in Adelaide. The photographs resonate with pride in the engineering achievements of the system and show irrigated pastures and a bountiful water supply flowing through dense forest. The album is in stark contrast with contemporary photographs purchased from photographer Bill Bachman showing the effect of salinity. Pictures also acquired at auction include an album of photographs of the activities of the Gliding Club of Victoria in the 1930s.

Other photographs acquired include a series recording aspects of life on the Gold Coast in the 1950s, purchased from photographer Jeff Carter. The photographs record beach wear, the construction of tourist facilities, some eye-catchingly designed motels and trend-setting ‘spaghetti bars’. Photographer Nic Ellis supplied 13 photographs taken at the Anglican boys’ school Guildford Grammar School in Perth in 1994 and 1995. The photographs depict boys in the boarding house, at their studies, in chapel, in the cadet unit, performing in the Rock Eisteddfod and taking part in sporting activities including archery and rugby.

In 2006, Pictures staff began negotiations with Mrs Melva Truchanas, widow of renowned wilderness photographer Olegas Truchanas, to acquire the right to copy the slide presentation which toured Australia in the unsuccessful campaign to save Lake Pedder. The project to copy them was completed in February, having taken several months due to technical issues related to the condition of the slides. This beautiful and significant collection of images can now be viewed online. The acquisition complements the photographs of Hydroelectric Authority staff member Russell Ashton, acquired in 2005, which represents an alternative view of Lake Pedder.

Other acquisitions during the period included 98 portraits from Rennie Ellis’ Aussies All series, a small collection of photographs of John Howard at home with his family by Ern McQuillan, and images of the Sydney film studio One Islam Productions.

Asian Publications

A number of publications relating to the September 2006 coup d’état in Thailand have been acquired. Many of these challenge the new unelected government on how long it will be before elected government is restored. There is also increasing discussion about the Thai royal family despite the risk of committing lèse majeste (crimes or offences against the sovereign). The law of lèse majeste itself is also under discussion, when previously these topics were rarely spoken of in public. The following titles are not available in Thai bookshops:

  • Giles Ji Ungpakorn. A Coup for the rich: Thailand’s political crisis. Bangkok: Workers Democracy Publications, 2007.
  • Prachatouch. [Krung Thep]: Borisat Samnak khao Prachathat, 2550- [2007] - New weekly anti-government news magazine.
  • Sirot Khlamphaibun . Prachathipatai mai chai khong rao [Democracy is not ours]. Bangkok: Openbooks, 2007.
  • Phit Phongsawat. Kanmưang khong phrai [People’s politics]. Bangkok: Openbooks, 2007.
  • Handley, Paul M. The king never smiles: a biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, c2006.

Other Overseas Publications

In addition to collecting a wide range of books and journals published overseas, the Library also acquires electronic and microform research collections to complement and enhance the print collection. During the last eight months, the following major resources have been made available:

  • Project Muse online database provides access to the full text of approximately 300 high quality humanities, arts and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.
  • JSTOR: arts & sciences collections online archive provides access to the full text of approximately 700 important scholarly journals. There is a gap, typically from one to five years, between the most recently published journal issue and the back issues available in JSTOR.
  • EIU.com contains extensive country analysis and forecasts prepared by the Economic Intelligence Unit, London.
  • Anti-slavery International, parts 1 and 2. 18 reels. This microfilm collection complements the Library's other holdings on slavery including Slavery: source material and critical literature, and Anti-slavery propaganda in the Oberlin College Library. The collection has some Australian content.
  • China Inland Mission, 1865-1951, parts 1 and 2. 39 reels. The collection contains correspondence, journals and subject files of James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, as well as papers concerning a number of women missionaries.
  • Foreign Office files for Japan and the Far East, series 2, part 8. 20 reels complement the first seven parts already held. Part eight includes files on economic, social and political issues as well as foreign relations particularly with Communist China.
  • Foreign Office files: USA, series 2, Vietnam 1959-1975, part 6.31 reels complement the first five parts already held. Part six focuses on the continued build-up of American forces and the growing number of peace initiatives.
  • Korean Mission records: papers of the Korean Missions, 1889-1987, part 1. 17reels. The records support study of Korean history and life in the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of western missionaries working in the community.
  • Nuclear disarmament after the cold war. Part 3: Archives of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 2001-2005. Eight reels complement the first two parts already held.
  • Women, writing and travel, part 1: The Diaries of Stella Benson. 10 reels. Stella Benson was a feminist, travel writer, novelist and story writer who spent much of her adult life in China and Hong Kong. Her diaries include accounts of colonial life in Hong Kong, the Treaty Ports, her views on China and America, and detail on political and social issues, as well as material related to other noted writers of the time.

Although the Library no longer has an active rare book acquisition program, material for the collection is still acquired, either through purchase or donation, where it augments existing collections and when resources permit. Titles acquired in this period include:

  • Flora de la Real Expedición Botánica del Nuevo Reyno de Granada / Publicada bajo los auspicios de los Gobiernos de España y Colombia y merced a la colaboración entre los Institutos de Cultura Hispánica de Madrid y Bogotá. Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1954-<2004 >. The Ambassador of Spain, His Excellency MrAntonio Cosano, presented 16 volumes to the Library to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the voyages of Torres and Quirós, two Spanish navigators who played a part in the naming and discovery of Australia. The volumes comprise a collection of botanical sketches collected during a scientific expedition to Colombia in the eighteenth century led by the Spanish botanist and astronomer, José Celestino Mutis.
  • The Surinam album: 91 watercolour facsimiles from the Maria Sibylla Merian Collection in the British Museum / Maria Sibylla Merian.The Folio Society, 2006. This magnificent book is quarter bound in leather and housed in a buckram-bound box with gold blocked titling on black goatskin. It is one of 1000 numbered copies and is accompanied by a commentary and three separate prints from the album. Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ great painters of plants and animals.
  • Unter den Kannibalen von Neu-Britannien: drei Wanderjahre durch ein wildes Land / von Wilfred Powell, frei übertragen durch F.M. Schröter. This title concerns one of the first explorations of the group of islands between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and was purchased from a supplier in the Netherlands.
  • The whole benefits that paper brings: written in 1588 / Thomas Churchyard; with engravings by Anthony Christmas. Huddersfield: The Fleece Press, 2002. This miniature book is an early nineteenth century version of a poem; 258 copies were printed on handmade paper made with specially constructed paper moulds.
  • The English bijou almanac for 1836 / poetically illustrated by L.E.L. London: Schloss, [1835]. Engraved throughout on steel, the miniature work contains six full-page portraits, for the most part of writers, painters, musicians or stage performers.
  • Edward Seymour & the Fancy Paper Company: the story of a British marbled paper manufacturer / Sidney E. Berger. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2006. Limited edition of 300 copies.
  • So long, hot-metal men / Henricus de Nova Villa. Newton, PA.: Bird & Bull Press, 2007. Limited edition of 140 copies.
  • Inigo Jones's 'Roman sketchbook' / edited and introduced by Edward Chaney. [London]: Roxburghe Club, 2006. 2 vols. Limited edition of 200 copies.
  • Golden Cockerel Press – 13 titles from Golden Cockerel Press, a major English private press operating between 1920 and 1961, were acquired at auction. These titles will be added to the Library’s already significant collection of Golden Cockerel Press publications.
  • Die Trinity : Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS. R.16.2 = The Trinity Apocalypse. Luzern: Faksimile Verlag, 2004. This magnificent facsimile reprint of a renowned illuminated manuscript from the thirteenth century is a limited edition of 980 numbered copies.

Back to the top